


For The Love of Pumpkin Pie

by Butterynutjob



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Crack, Craigslist, Dysfunctional Family, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Het threat, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Humor, M/M, Thanksgiving, Underage Drinking, anti-Semitism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-08-19
Packaged: 2018-04-11 23:28:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4456613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Butterynutjob/pseuds/Butterynutjob
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>Need a date for Thanksgiving? Mad at your dad?</b> <i>I am a 28-year-old felon with no high school degree, and a dirty old van one year younger than me covered in graffiti. I can play anywhere between the ages of 25 and 35 depending on if I shave. I’m a line cook and work late nights at a bar. If you’d like to have me as your strictly platonic date for Thanksgiving, but have me pretend to be in a very long or serious relationship with you, to torment your family, I’m game.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [messedup4good](https://archiveofourown.org/users/messedup4good/gifts).



> [Inspired by this tumblr post](http://butterynutjob.tumblr.com/post/120729487681/messedup4good-mc-meow-avoy-fassbender-ack)
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you [ingrates](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ingrates/pseuds/ingrates) for beta-reading it for me!

_I am a 28-year-old felon with no high school degree, and a dirty old van one year younger than me covered in graffiti. I can play anywhere between the ages of 25 and 35 depending on if I shave. I’m a line cook and work late nights at a bar. If you’d like to have me as your strictly platonic date for Thanksgiving, but have me pretend to be in a very long or serious relationship with you, to torment your family, I’m game._

_I can do these things, at your request:_

_-Openly hit on other dinner guests while you act like you don’t notice_

_-Start instigative discussions about politics and/or religion_

_-Propose to you in front of everyone_

_-Get really ‘drunk’ as the evening goes on_

_-Start an actual, physical fight with a family member, either inside or on the yard for all the neighbors to see_

_-I require no pay but the free meal I will receive as a guest including HOMEMADE PUMPKIN PIE. The pie is non-negotiable._

****

Charles knew it was the van he was looking for the minute it pulled into the parking lot.

It was black; or rather, it had probably been black when it had first emerged from the factory. The paint was scuffed down to the metal in several places, and there was graffiti of all different colors on the side of the van Charles could see. It was also audibly offensive; Charles winced as the van got closer because the chugging engine was so loud that Charles thought it must be violating some sort of noise ordinance. There were also stickers plastered everywhere; mostly bumper stickers (although they were on more than just the bumper) but also band stickers and stickers with content so graphic that if Charles had looked any closer he probably would have blushed. As if that wasn't enough, the van was emitting a noxious trail of gray smoke and smelled like burning and hot asphalt.

It was perfect.

Charles smothered his grin as he got out of his car and waved down the driver. The van chugged into the space next to Charles' BMW like it was on it's last legs and then the engine quit in a huff.

Charles nerved himself by taking a deep breath and opening the door to the van. "Hey," the driver grunted in greeting, without looking at him. 

"Hello," Charles said, "Erik, right?" He looked at the driver. He had a strong, elegant profile, but nothing else about him was elegant. The man had dark hair that was slicked back with something and he was wearing a black leather jacket. He had some ginger stubble on his chin and despite wearing a slight sneer he was actually surprisingly attractive, even if he did look like a stereotypical 1950's greaser.

"Yeah," the man said, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. He glanced at Charles for a moment and then did a double take before he frowned and looked out the driver's side window. 

Charles frowned, too. "What? Do I have something...?" He looked down at himself. He was wearing his gray suit and blue tie. Despite looking forward to mortifying his mother Sharon and stepfather Kurt with his choice of dinner companion, he was too conditioned not to dress up for Thanksgiving dinner–even if he hated that part of himself a little bit for that.

"No," the man said brusquely, still looking away. "You wanna get in, or not?”

"Well, ah, I was hoping we could talk out a few details in advance."

The man flicked cigarette ash out the window, shooting Charles a quick glance before responding. "I usually just improvise, but clearly you have trust issues."

" _Excuse_ me–" Charles started to say but then stopped himself. "Nevermind. Rude is good. Do you have any tattoos?"

The man turned and fixed Charles with a steely glare. "Tattoos are against my religion. Did I say I had any tattoos in the ad?"

"No," Charles said, trying to quash his annoyance. "So I suppose you don't. Pity–Kurt really hates tattoos."

The man took a drag on his cigarette. "Is Kurt your dad?"

"Stepfather," Charles answered. He heard the bitterness in his own tone. 

The man inclined his head enough to look at Charles and Charles got the distinct impression he was being sized up–or checked out. He didn't speak though, and the silence began to feel uncomfortable.

"You really don't want any payment?" Charles blurted after a moment. "How do I know you're not just casing the house for a future robbery job?"

Erik took another drag of his cigarette and looked considering before responding. "That's not such a bad idea, actually. Why would you care? You hate them, don't you?"

Charles didn't answer, clearing his throat and looking out the passenger window. As much as he dreaded Thanksgiving at home, he just didn't have it in him to say that he hated his family. 

Next to him, Erik spoke sarcastically. "As I said in the ad, _and_ in the emails we exchanged, I just want a meal that ends with some decent fucking pumpkin pie. And by decent I mean amazing. And homemade. If your parents will be serving a fucking store-bought pie tell me now, because this isn't happening."

"No, no, the pumpkin pie is one of our family cook's specialties," Charles said hastily, wondering if this man was actually insane. "Not store-bought."

Erik relaxed. "Good. Then I think the only other thing I need to know is what your goal is. Or goals. Anything specific you want to happen?"

Charles waved a hand. "Everything you put in your ad was great. As far as goals...yes. I do have a goal. I don't want to stay the whole weekend. Every year, the only way I can tolerate the insanity of Thanksgiving dinner is to drink, and then I find myself not able to drive, and when I have a hangover the next day my mother gives me what she calls 'the hair of the dog'..." Charles sighed and looked at his lap before he inhaled and a smile crept across his face. "I honestly would like if you were asked to leave, and then I will go with you. The sooner the better."

"But after the pie is served," Erik said, lifting his chin and looking Charles in the eye like it was a challenge. 

"Right," Charles said slowly, trying not to sound overtly patronizing. Oh god, he was going to die. The insane man was going to feast on his innards and have pumpkin pie for dessert. 

"Great." Erik tossed his cigarette out the window. "Let's go."

**

Erik parked the van quite obnoxiously right in front of the front door, an eyesore his parents wouldn't be able to miss. Charles smirked at him approvingly. Erik's lip twitched, which might be as close as he came to a smile, for all Charles knew. He was certainly...brooding. 

They got out of the van and walked to the front porch. Charles was holding a bottle of wine: red wine, which was his passive-aggressive way of annoying his mother; she had made it abundantly clear over the years that only white wine should be served with turkey. 

His aggressive-aggressive way of annoying his mother was standing next to him. 

As Charles rang the doorbell, Erik suddenly said, "Are we–affectionate?"

Charles looked at Erik with wide eyes. It had not escaped his notice that Erik, while possibly insane, was also insanely hot. But since his Craigslist ad had been posted in the ‘men for women’ section on Craigslist and since he had included the words ‘strictly platonic’ in the first paragraph, Charles had assumed that holding hands or kissing was not something Erik would be amenable to. He actually hadn’t even considered it. 

But if Erik was suggesting it...despite his taciturn demeanor, and unshaved face, the man was stupidly hot. Charles felt like a deer caught in the headlights. He knew the door would be answered at any minute, and Erik was looking at him with his eyebrows raised impatiently, waiting for an answer, and for some reason Charles' mind was blank and he was staring at Erik's lips. 

"I guess I'll take that as a yes," Erik said, and suddenly attacked Charles' mouth with his own.

"Bleb-bluh-bo," was all Charles could articulate around Erik's tongue attempting to make its way to his stomach. His scruff was scratchy and he tasted like lung cancer. 

Charles was about to shove Erik away and give him a piece of his mind when the door opened. Erik finished up the kiss by sucking Charles' tongue into his mouth before finally letting go so they could turn to the door. 

Charles' mother and stepfather stood, both looking shocked and disgusted. 

Well. Charles immediately felt both ashamed (for being a bad son) and elated (for being a bad son.)

"Hello," he said, somewhat breathlessly, wiping his wrist across his mouth, with a big fake smile plastered on his face. "Mother, Kurt: this is my boyfriend, Erik. Erik, may I introduce my mother Sharon and my stepfather Kurt."

"Charming," Sharon said sarcastically. She had a glass of amber liquid in her hand, of course. "Erik. So nice to meet you. Welcome to our home." Her tone was flat and uninflected. On the last words she waved an arm vaguely in the air and then took a healthy sip of her beverage and turned to go inside. 

Kurt was frowning and moving his eyes back and forth between Charles and Erik as if he was trying to figure something out. Despite Sharon's gesture of dubious welcome, the large bulk of Kurt was blocking the entrance while his mind worked through whatever it was processing. 

"Nice to meet you, _Kurt_ ," Erik said, pushing his way past the other man inside–which put him scandalously close to Kurt and the large man stepped back instinctively. 

"Come on, sugarnipples," Erik said to Charles, tugging him by the wrist.

"Sugarnipples?" said Kurt, now behind them. 

_"Sugarnipples?_ " Charles hissed. 

"You know," Erik said with a grin, not quietly, "Because they're sweet." He brushed his hand down the front of Charles' shirt, making Charles gasp. 

"Cain," Kurt called loudly, closer behind Charles than he had thought, making him jump, "Say hello to your brother."

"Stepbrother," Charles and Cain said at the same time. They rounded the corner into the family room, where Cain was of course watching football as he was every Thanksgiving. 

"Hey shithead," Cain greeted, barely looking up from the TV as he shoved a handful of Chex mix in his mouth. "Who's zuh greaffy guy?" he asked, looking at Erik curiously, chewing as he spoke. 

Charles was just debating how to respond when a piercing shriek penetrated his eardrums. " _Charles!_ "

"Raven?" Charles said in delighted surprise, as his 12-year-old stepsister launched herself at him, giggling with delight as he swung her around. 

"I thought you were with your mother this year?" he asked. He hadn't been expecting Raven. That might really change his plans. He glanced at Erik to see that the felon was staring at Raven with what looked like a deliberately blank expression on his face.

"I was going to, but Dad told me you were bringing your new boyfriend," she said, turning her beaming gaze to Erik in anticipation. 

Charles' felt a twist of guilt in his gut. 

"Uh, well, yes," he said, turning to look at Erik and feeling tongue-tied with sudden reservations about his plan. “Raven, this is...Erik.” 

“Hi Raven,” Erik said, with a surprisingly nice smile. 

“Hi!” She beamed up at both of them. She opened her mouth to say something else when Sharon called her name sharply from the other room. Raven shut her mouth and rolled her eyes. “I better go see what she wants,” she muttered, sullenly stalking off in the direction of Sharon’s voice. 

“You didn’t mention a younger sister,” Erik said in a low voice. 

“I didn’t know she would be here,” Charles admitted. Normally he loved to see Raven; after all, she was the only person in his entire family that he felt he had a genuinely loving relationship with. But that meant he didn’t want to mislead her about his relationship with Erik; she had been lied to enough in her life. “I don’t want...she’s not like the rest of my family, Erik. I would rather she not be...I mean...just please, be nice to her?”

Erik frowned. “She’s a child. Of course.”

Charles wanted to explain further but at that moment the dinner bell chimed. Erik gave Charles a very unimpressed look. “A dinner bell, really?” he asked flatly. 

“Save it for the family,” Charles muttered, pushing Erik ahead of him towards the dining room.


	2. Dinner

As they walked down the long hall to the dining room, something occurred to Charles. "Maybe we should have a code word," he said quietly, slowing his steps so that Erik would slow too. When Charles stopped completely, Erik turned around to look at him with one eyebrow raised. 

"A code word?" he asked, in a mildly amused voice. "What does that mean?"

Charles took a deep breath and tried not to lose his patience. "My little sister is here," Charles said quietly, his eyes darting both ways down the hall to make sure the conversation stayed private. "I want a way to let you know...in case you, well, go too far." He remembered the things listed in the ad ( _will start an actual physical fight with a family member, will hit on female guests_ ) and how he had told Erik all of that was acceptable. 

"Oh," Erik said knowingly, and a little patronizingly. "Like a safeword." 

Charles startled, giving Erik a hard look. The man was smirking at him. 

"You know what a safeword is, don't you, Charles?" Erik said, or rather purred, moving a centimeter closer to Charles. 

Charles tried to say "Yes," but something caught in his throat and he coughed instead. He cleared his throat hard. "I'm fully aware of what a safeword is, although I've never had to use one."

Erik's smile transformed into something a little more suggestive, his eyes roving over Charles' face and settling on his lips. "So I guess you've never been tied up."

"Wrong," Charles said, looking Erik in the eye and seeing the spark of surprise and intrigue there. "It's more that nobody's reached my limits." 

Erik blinked in surprise as Charles smoothly stepped away from him and headed back down the hall to the dining room. "My safeword is Cerebro," he said in a low voice, as he moved farther away from Erik. 

"Spanish for brain?" Charles heard Erik mutter behind him, but he ignored it. 

Charles heard Erik suck in his breath and he shot an amused look at the felon as he realized that Erik was surprised and probably intimidated by the room. The dining room was quite imposing, after all. It had cream-colored marble floors and the walls were dark wood with carved flowers and vines. There was a tall marble fireplace on one wall, almost tall enough for Charles to walk into, and the dining table itself was at least ten feet long and six feet wide. 

Everyone except Charles and Erik were already seated, but their two seats were obvious; next to each other and across from Cain and Raven. Kurt and Sharon were seated at either end of the large table.

"What's your poison, Erik?" Sharon drawled at him, her glazed blue eyes dragging slowly up his torso as he seated himself. 

"Oh, I'm self-contained," Erik said, pulling a metal flask out of an inside pocket of his leather jacket, unscrewing it and taking a long pull. Charles felt his cheeks flushing at the rudeness of it, but that was the point, wasn't it? He snuck a peek at Kurt's face and saw that he looked furious.  
Well, excellent. Still, Charles doubted he'd be able to get through dinner sober.

"I'll have some of that Cabernet Sauvignon that I brought," Charles said to the server, who silently nodded and went to retrieve the wine. 

"Really, Charles," Sharon said, her voice dripping with disappointment. "Red wine with turkey? I thought I raised you better than that."

Charles pointedly ignored his mother's comment as the first course was served, a soup.

"Erik is a fry cook," Charles announced, as if it was a challenge. He was looking at Raven while he said it. She just smiled and nodded. 

"Fry cook," Kurt said with disapproval. "I guess it's clear why he's dating you, then." He glanced around the opulent room significantly. 

"Does this soup have any pork products in it?" Erik said suddenly. 

A hush fell over the room as Kurt and Sharon exchanged glances. "It's bean with bacon soup, sir," the server murmured. 

"I'll pass," Erik said. 

Cain was digging in whole-heartedly, but everyone else was a little slower to tuck in. "You don't eat pork, Erik?" Sharon asked delicately. "Is that - because of an allergy?"

"No, it's because I'm Jewish," Erik said. 

Sharon raised her eyebrows and took a quick drink of her whiskey.

"Gay _and_ Jewish," Cain said, guffawing, his mouth full of food. "Your parents must be real proud."

Everyone at the table turned to give Cain a baffled look, including Raven. 

"I think his parents probably know about the Jewish part. Do you even think before you talk?" Raven said. Cain threw a breadstick at her, which she caught and threw right back. 

Erik was still frowning at Cain. "Gay? Why do you think I'm gay?"

Kurt cleared his throat. "I don't think this is appropriate dinner-table conversation," he said. 

"Duh, you came with Shithead," Cain said, indicating Charles and rolling his eyes as he shoveled another giant spoonful of soup into his mouth. Kurt frowned at Cain, but Cain ignored him.

Erik turned his head to Charles slowly, a deep frown on his face. "Wait - are you - a _man_?" 

Charles nearly spit out his soup as he laughed. Raven laughed too, a fit of giggles, covering up her mouth with her hands. Cain looked back and forth between Erik and Charles, confused, as Kurt and Sharon rolled their eyes at one another. 

"Well, if he has to be gay and Jewish, at least he's also funny," Sharon said, inhaling, a fake smile plastered on her face. 

"May I be excused?" Raven said suddenly, her forehead wrinkling. "I don't feel well." Charles looked at Raven with concern. He knew she was very sensitive to the kind of tension that usually accompanied family dinners at the Xavier-Marko household, which is why she usually had Thanksgiving at her mother’s house - and why Charles had had sudden misgivings about bringing Erik once he’d realized she was there. 

Sharon waved a hand at her dismissively. Unsure, Raven looked at Kurt, who gave her a brief nod. She slid off her seat and left.

"Thank goodness," Sharon said the moment Raven was gone. "Now we're all adults here and can really talk. So who's the girl between you two, hmm? I bet it's Charles, right?"

Charles felt his cheeks blaze as he tossed back the rest of his wine and motioned for the server to pour another. His mother hadn't said much about it when he'd come out as gay to her and Kurt two years previously, and he had never brought someone he was dating home before. Now he was glad he hadn't.

"No, actually, it's me," Erik said, his voice laced with heavy sarcasm. "I'm the girl. The girl is the one who gets drunk and asks rude questions, right? Because that's definitely me."

Charles coughed to cover up another laugh. Erik was staring straight at his mother, his gaze unwavering. Sharon frowned at him and tilted her head like she was trying to understand something. 

"You do eat turkey, right, Erik?" Kurt said loudly as comprehension started to dawn on Sharon's face. "Or is that another thing you can't do?"

Erik slowly pulled his gaze away from Sharon and raised his eyebrows at Kurt. "I do eat turkey," he said after pausing for a moment longer than was comfortable. "I think you'll find that I do whatever I want."

Charles was trembling with a combination of anxiety and amusement. He felt like he was either going to scream or break into hysterical laughter any moment. 

"But you don't eat bacon," Kurt said. 

"Because I don't _want_ to eat bacon," Erik said. 

Cain looked at Erik like he was crazy. " _What?_ Why not? Have you tasted bacon?"

Erik was saved from having to answer that because just then the server entered carrying a very large turkey on a silver tray. 

"Oh, isn't that lovely," Sharon said. It was hard to tell if she was sarcastic or not. 

Erik smirked. "It reminds me of when I had Charles trussed up last week, you remember that, sugarnipples?"

Charles coughed on his sip of wine. "Cerebro," he croaked. 

Sharon gasped. " _What_ did you say?"

Erik appeared not to have understood Charles. He winked at him. “No need to apologize, _bro_.” He turned and addressed Sharon in a louder tone. “I said, this turkey reminds me of last week when I had Charles' ankles tied above his head--"

"CEREBRO!" Charles shouted. He stood up and all but ran out of the dining room. 

**

Everyone at the table stared after Charles for a moment, before Cain muttered “Shithead,” and went back to his soup. Kurt and Sharon exchanged shrugs and resumed eating their meals as well. 

Erik looked at each person left sitting at the table in turn, feeling a little out of his depth. His goal had not been to upset Charles, and he hoped Charles returned to the table soon. Erik thought Charles was actually kind of cute. And more than being good-looking, he was also charming and smart and he clearly deserved far better than his wretched family. In a part of his mind Erik had been hoping that maybe after this was over they might actually be able to see each other again...but it was doubtful Charles would want that if Erik couldn't achieve his goal: for his family to kick Erik out. 

Well then. Suppressing the urge to chase after Charles, Erik turned to Sharon and gave her a slow grin. _I will hit on other dinner guests._ "I can see where Charles got his good looks from," he said in a low, caramel-coated voice. The table was big enough that Cain and Kurt may or may not have heard him—Erik didn't really care either way. The goal was to get kicked out, after all. 

Sharon turned her head and looked at Erik with a slight frown on her face. "Did you just say what I think you said?"

"That depends," Erik said, dragging his tongue across upper lip slowly, doing his best to ooze creepiness. He scooted his chair closer. "Did you like it?"

Sharon was still staring at him. "You have some nerve," she said. 

Erik started to smile until he felt her hand grasp his thigh. It almost felt like a claw. 

"Hitting on your boyfriend's mother at Thanksgiving dinner, in front of her husband," she continued. She spoke at a normal volume. Erik's eyes darted to Kurt and Cain but they were both busy eating and didn't seem to notice what was going on at the other end of the table. 

Sharon's eyes followed where Erik was looking. "Oh, sweetie," Sharon said, still gripping his thigh. "I doubt he would notice if you fucked me on this table."

Erik's eyes flew wide and his head snapped back towards Sharon. She gave him a slow and objectively disturbingly smile. "Although I think I'd prefer a little more privacy than that," she said, delicately feeding herself a bite of turkey. "Let's wait fifteen minutes and then meet each other in my bedroom."

Erik suddenly found himself without an appetite. "Great," he said, aware that his smile must look more like a grimace. "I'll just go, um, I'll just, um." Erik stood up and walked out the door Charles had exited (a different one than they'd both entered.) 

Since it wasn't obvious which way Charles had gone, he just leaned up against the wall for a moment and ran his hand through his hair, trying to think clearly. Why was he here again? 

"I just wanted some pumpkin pie," he muttered to himself, as a server passed him and gave him a curious look, walking from what was clearly the kitchen into the dining room. 

All he'd wanted was some pumpkin pie. He hadn't thought being obnoxious enough to get kicked out would be such a challenge. It wasn't something he'd ever had to work at before. 

He heard Sharon's voice in the dining room, imperiously addressing one of the servers, and he shuddered and moved farther down the hall, away from the dining room and the kitchen. He came to a set of stairs, so he climbed them, no real goal in mind. 

Well. Part of his mind wanted to find Charles and apologize for having crossed the line. 

Although there was nothing stopping him from leaving, he realized. He could just leave. Except...that would leave Charles without a ride, and the one thing Charles had expressed to Erik was that he didn't want to stay at this house for the whole weekend. 

And now that Erik had met Charles’ family, he could certainly see why. 

Erik sighed and kept walking down the hall. At least every step took him farther from Sharon. 

The hallway widened and on his right side Erik felt a chill breeze. He walked towards it and could see that a glass door leading to a balcony was propped open. Thinking perhaps Charles was out there, Erik slipped out onto the balcony silently. 

And there he discovered little Raven, a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of rum in the other. 

"What are you doing?" Erik said in shock. Raven jumped and dropped the cigarette. The bottle nearly fell out of her hands right after, but she recovered it. 

"Erik!" she said in surprise. She looked at her hands guiltily. "I. Um. I'm allowed."

Erik frowned. It seemed like it could almost be true, in this miserable home, but still. "I don't care," he said. He stepped on the cigarette. "These are terrible for you, Raven. And if you start now you may find it very hard to quit later."

"I just wanted to see what the big deal was," she muttered, sullenly looking down. 

Erik took the bottle of rum out of her hands. "And this—oh." He looked at the bottle in surprise. "This is actually a pretty good rum."

"I don't like it," she said, rubbing at her eye and swallowing. Erik realized to his horror that she was on the brink of tears. 

"Hey. Um. Don't—don't do that," he said awkwardly. "I'm sorry I said—well, I'm not, not really. But I am sorry that your family are a bunch of assholes."

Raven choked out a laugh as she looked at him. "That wasn't what I was expecting you to say," she said. "I don't think you're supposed to say that."

Erik shrugged. "I don't put a lot of stock in 'supposed to'."

"Except I'm not supposed to drink or smoke, right?" she said sarcastically. 

Erik sighed. Dammit, now he was counseling a kid. "I didn't come out here to tell you how to live your life. I just saw someone trying to hurt herself. You know that shit isn't good for you, don't you? You just told me you didn't even like the rum."

"I don't," she agreed in a small voice. 

Erik handed her the bottle of rum back. "Look. You really want to—hell, I’m not responsible for you. I just don't want to see someone fuck up the way I did."

Raven considered him with wide, blinking eyes. It occurred to Erik that he was probably using more profanity than she was used to. "But everyone drinks," she said. "Sharon, mom, dad, Charles, you—"

"I don't drink," Erik said quietly. He pulled out the flask from his jacket and offered it to her. 

She unscrewed the lid and took a cautious sip. "It's just water?" she said incredulously. 

Erik nodded, taking the flask back. "I did drink, when I was younger. It got me into a lot of trouble, so I stopped. I haven't had a drink in seven years." He held the flask up. "It's easier to carry a flask and let people make assumptions than it is to keep avoiding people who want me to drink with them all night."

"Besides, it looks cool," Raven said, a little bit of snark entering her tone. 

"Well, then it backfired, because I'm trying to look like an asshole," Erik said, distracted by what sounded like voices down the hall. 

He cocked his ear and crept closer to the door, listening hard. "You're trying to look like an asshole?" Raven said, her face contorted with confusion. "Why?"

Damn. "Um. That's really a question for Charles," Erik said. "But I know he wants to leave early."

Raven looked at him with round eyes. "He does?" she whispered. She looked miserable. 

Erik opened his mouth to try and explain further—although he probably just would have dug a deeper hole for himself - when he heard what was definitely a shout down the hall. 

Raven and Erik exchanged glances. “It sounds like Cain,” she said. 

There were more noises, including some thumps that made Erik and Raven look at each other in alarm. “Is Cain violent?” Erik asked. 

“Yeah,” Raven said in a small voice. “Not to me—Charles always made sure of that.”

Erik held his finger up to his lips as he crept back inside. He followed the muttered conversation he could hear echoing down the cavernous hall and sped up when he heard the unmistakable sound of flesh hitting flesh. He rounded a corner and what he saw made his blood run cold: Cain had a fistful of Charles’ shirt and was holding him against the wall, his right fist cocked as if he was about to hit Charles—and judging by the blood dripping from Charles’ face, it wouldn’t be the first time. 

“So you like it up the ass, huh?” Cain sneered to Charles. He didn't seem to be aware of Erik's presence at all until Erik’s fist smashed into his ear. 

“OW! What the fuck!” Cain exclaimed. 

Erik spun him and was about to hit him again when Charles said, “Erik. Please, don’t.”

Breathing hard, Erik scowled but didn’t hit Cain a second time. “Why not?” he asked, his face twisted in disgust as he held Cain against the wall with his left hand. 

“Because Charles isn’t very good with violence,” Cain said, in a mincing imitation of Charles’ voice. 

“That’s usually true,” Charles agreed, before he pulled back and slugged Cain with all his body weight behind it. 

Impressed and somewhat amused, Erik let Cain go as the large man half-fell on the floor. He was on his hands and knees breathing heavily for a second before he stood up and gave Charles a murderous look. “You better run, fag,” he said. “I’m getting my gun.” 

Cain staggered down the hall and Charles pulled Erik in the other direction urgently. “Is he serious?” Erik asked incredulously, staring at Cain’s broad, retreating back, as he reluctantly let Charles drag him down the hall.

“I’m afraid he is,” Charles muttered, touching his bleeding lip and wincing. “My family is pretty fucked up, Erik.”

“You should get something for that,” Erik said, as a drop of blood fell on Charles’ suit jacket. 

“That’s where we’re going,” Charles said, tugging on Erik's sleeve. “But hurry, please. Cain has more pride than brain cells.”


	3. Bolthole

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thanking ingrates for a fast and awesome beta! 
> 
> I expect one or two more chapters. Probably one, but I've said that before...

They headed up a level of stairs and into a huge library, a library bigger than any residence should rightly have in it. Erik didn’t realize he was gawking at the room until Charles hissed, “Over here!” and Erik saw him disappear behind a bookshelf. 

Erik curiously walked over to where Charles had disappeared and then he saw the slightly angled bookshelf. Bemused, he walked behind it, and Charles impatiently gestured that he should move faster. Once Erik was completely behind the shelf with Charles, Charles pulled on a canvas strap attached to the back of the shelf until the gap that Erik had walked in through disappeared and the shelf was flush with the wall next to it. 

However, the angled shelf had been the only source of light, and once it closed they were in complete darkness. Erik reached for his cell phone and belatedly realized that he had left it in his van when he saw the painfully bright light of Charles' mobile phone screen illuminate the space. 

They were in a small space between the back of the bookshelf and the wall, a space about ten feet long but only about three feet wide. The ceiling was angled such that Erik guessed that they were under a stairwell of some kind. On the far side of where the ‘entrance’ was, where the ceiling was lower due to the angle, there were cushions and some papers posted on the wall to one side and on the back of the bookshelf on the other side. There was even a sad-looking teddy bear sitting on the cushions.

And there was Charles, glaring at him. 

“Whatever possessed you to punch Cain?” Charles asked, jaw clenched and brow furrowed. The effect of the ominous shadows being cast on his face from the cell phone light was not much mitigated by the fact that he had to tilt his chin up to look Erik in the eye. 

Erik’s eyebrows rose almost to his hairline. “ _What?_ Your brother is an asshole; he deserved it!”

 _“Stepbrother,”_ Charles snapped. “And while he may threaten me with a gun, I know he’s not actually going to shoot _me_. I don’t know if that’s true for you!”

“He had just punched you!” Erik said, making his voice the angriest whisper he could generate. “You were—are—bleeding! Besides,” Erik suddenly remembered, “I put in the Craigslist ad that I would start a real, physical fight with a family member and you said ‘all of that is fine’.”

Charles was still glaring at Erik, but some of the heat had gone out of his gaze. Erik watched a drop of blood roll down Charles’ chin from his split bottom lip and reached up to catch the drop on his fingers. Charles frowned in confusion and pulled back a little, but allowed the touch. Erik showed his fingers to Charles. “You’re still bleeding,” Erik said softly. 

Charles glanced at Erik’s fingers and right back to Erik’s face. He spoke firmly. “You’re here because of me. That makes whatever happens to you my responsibility.”

Erik frowned thoughtfully as he regarded Charles. So Charles' anger was actually...guilt? Erik slowly shook his head. “It’s not your fault if your broth—stepbrother—is homicidal.”

Charles’ face seemed to go through a gamut of emotions, his eyes fixed on Erik’s the whole time. “I know it’s not your fault either,” he finally said, contrite. “I’m sorry, Erik, that you are here and in the middle of this. You didn’t ask to have your life threatened." He smiled, a little sadly. "You just wanted pie. Oh!"

Charles exclaimed because he had dropped his phone. He swore as they both heard what sounded like multiple pieces of phone hitting the hardwood floor. 

“Well, that sucks,” Erik said after a moment, into the blackness. He was more than a little concerned about the possibly homicidal man roaming the mansion with a gun, but Charles seemed to think they were safe in here. 

Charles made a sound that could have been a laugh or a sob, but when it was followed by a sniff, Erik reached out an arm to touch what he hoped was Charles’ shoulder. 

“You okay?” he asked softly. He slid his hand down Charles’ arm to squeeze his hand. He felt rather than heard Charles step closer, and wasn’t completely surprised to feel Charles’ arms slide around his waist and feel Charles’ face pressed into his shirt. 

Erik embraced him back, feeling a rush of protectiveness for the man in his arms. He rested his cheek against the top of Charles’ head and Charles snuggled closer. 

“This place is where I would come as a child,” Charles whispered into Erik’s chest. “Whenever Cain became—the way he is right now. Violent. Even though he is three years younger than me, he’s been bigger than me since he was ten. He’s always enjoyed hurting me.” Charles’ voice was bitter.

Erik wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. “Do your parents know?” he finally asked, when the length of the silence had begun to grow too long.

Charles scoffed. “Yes, but Kurt’s response was always to hit _both_ of us, and he hits harder than Cain. My mother’s been marinating in whiskey for the past decade...ever since she found out about Raven.”

Erik remembered his encounter with Raven earlier that evening and suddenly had a crazy image of a blond toddler drinking and smoking. _That couldn't be it,_ Erik thought. “What about Raven?” Erik said cautiously. 

Charles exhaled against Erik’s chest, and his hot breath made it a little challenging to focus on his words. “Two years after my mother married Kurt, she found out he’d kept on sleeping with his ex-wife. She—the ex-wife—had Raven about a year about my mother married Kurt. Sharon and I didn’t meet Raven until she was a year old. Kurt and Cain kept her a secret all that time, until Raven’s mother became ill for a while—I think it was shingles—and couldn’t care for her. Kurt just brought home an infant one night and said ‘this is my daughter; you need to take care of her for a while’.”

Erik exhaled. “That’s fucked up.”

“Yes,” Charles agreed. “My family is a trainwreck. But I suppose everyone’s family is to some extent, right?” Charles had lifted his head a little away from Erik's chest but his arms were still around the taller man's waist.

“Well,” Erik said awkwardly, “Not everyone’s.” Given what Charles had just told him, Erik was too embarrassed to say that his parents were both still married and still in love after thirty-two years; that they were supportive of both his sister and himself and accepting of his sexual orientation. 

“So what’s your excuse, then?” Charles said lightly. “I thought felons were the product of broken homes.” Erik wanted to tell Charles something that quickly and easily give Erik an appropriately weighted backstory, but he was distracted by the fact that Charles’ body language had subtly changed in the past few moments. His pelvis had angled slightly down and his fingers were moving on Erik’s lower back, stroking him subtly but sensually. Erik wasn’t immune to the difference, nor was he unaware of what they had been talking about when Charles’ body language changed: apparently Charles liked thinking about Erik being a felon.

The timing was terrible. Erik had not forgotten about the fact that there may very well be someone in the house who wanted to kill him, but Charles was exactly his type and, well, they were trapped together in the darkness. He could feel that Charles’ head was angled up now, no longer pressed against Erik’s chest, and even though he couldn’t see he imagined Charles looking up at him, delectably kissable. Erik’s body was responding to Charles even as his mind said, _maybe this isn’t the best time?_

“I’m bad to the bone, baby,” Erik murmured, bringing his hands up to Charles’ face and finding his cheekbones. Charles snorted, but when Erik’s lips landed on his, he kissed him back eagerly, so Erik counted the line a success. 

**

 _Okay, his lines are cheesy, but at least he’s not straight,_ Charles thought gleefully as Erik’s deliciously hard body pressed him up against the wall, kissing him hungrily. God, Erik was a good kisser, much better than he had demonstrated earlier. Erik’s jacket fell to the floor behind him somewhere after Charles stroked his shoulders and wordlessly urged Erik to shrug it off. Erik had Charles pinned to the wall by his pelvis and they were grinding together, both rock hard, when Erik muttered, “You kinda taste like blood.”

Charles thought it would be polite not to mention what his first taste of kissing Erik had been like— _lung cancer_ —especially since he could barely taste the cigarettes now. “I do think my lip is still bleeding,” he admitted regretfully. 

Erik pulled back reluctantly. "I guess I should go a little easier on it."

Charles tried to swallow the unhappy sound in his throat, but it came out anyway, as a tiny whimper. 

Erik nosed along Charles' jawline from his chin to his ear. "Fortunately, you don't seem to be bleeding here," he whispered, giving Charles delightful shivers as he nibbled lightly at the skin on Charles' neck, just below his earlobe. He started kissing his way down Charles' neck, simultaneously pushing Charles' jacket off him much the way Charles had already done to Erik. 

Charles groaned as Erik untucked his shirt and slid his hands up under it, against Charles' smooth flesh. He was still mouthing at Charles' neck, using a combination of lips and tongue and teeth in a way that made Charles weak in the knees. He wanted to return the favor—hell, he wanted to get on his knees and go to town—but was concerned about bleeding all over Erik. Having the crotch of one's pants stained with blood was rarely desirable.

But even though his mouth was out of commission for the moment, Charles had hands, and he was happy to find that Erik's jeans weren't too tight for him to slip his hand down the front of Erik's pants easily...where he immediately touched his bare, hard cock. Erik clutched at Charles' flesh at the contact and hissed. 

"You're not wearing underwear," Charles said, scandalized and aroused. 

"You're wearing too much clothing," Erik retorted, beginning to unbutton Charles' shirt. 

Suddenly, a piercing shriek sounded and both men stiffened and froze. "That's Raven," Charles said urgently. He pulled away from Erik and felt along the bookshelf until the reached the corner and pushed. 

Even the dim, warm light of the library was painful to Charles' eyes after the darkness they'd been in. He turned to get his jacket, only to find that Erik had scooped both jackets up already and was handing Charles his. 

"Is Cain...?" Erik didn't finish the thought, he just looked at Charles with worried eyes. 

"I can't believe he would hurt Raven," Charles said slowly. Cain and Raven bickered, but as far as he knew, Cain had never exacted the kind of violence on his sister that he had on Charles. Unfortunately though, he couldn't be one hundred percent positive about anything with Cain. "But we should find her."

"I ran into her earlier," Erik said, close behind Charles as they left the library. "She was on a balcony. Do you have a lot of those?"

"Yes," Charles said distractedly as they rounded a corner. Erik was completely lost; the mansion was far bigger than any single-family residence should be. "I thought I knew her favorite hiding place, but when I left the table earlier to find her I couldn't find it. Do you remember where that balcony is?"

"Is that a joke?" Erik said, as they rounded another corner. He usually had a good innate sense of direction, but something about being in the dark in the library had turned him around. "I have no idea where I am right now. Have I been in this hall before?"

Charles gave Erik a look of frank disbelief as they rounded yet another corner and walked into a bedroom. 

Erik had to stop at the door for a moment because the room was huge. It was two-level, and there was a giant four-poster bed covered by diaphanous cloth on a pedestal that dominated one corner of the room, and a giant trampoline in another corner. Stuffed animals bigger than people lined the walls, as did posters of teenage boys and animated characters Erik had never heard of. The biggest feature of the room was a flat screen TV that was almost as big as the king-size bed, and it was currently displaying a paused game of Kingdom Hearts. The blonde girl sitting in front of the television had apparently paused it to eat, and as she saw Charles and Erik enter she put a bite of food in her mouth. 

"Is that pumpkin pie?" Erik demanded, striding towards her and stopping directly in front of her, standing between the couch she was sitting on and the approximately one-hundred inch television. 

Charles walked up to stand next to Erik and gave him a pointed look before he addressed his sister. "We heard you scream. Raven, is everything alright?"

"It _was_ pumpkin pie. I just finished it," Raven said, indicating the empty plate and licking her lips. "Did I scream? Oh yeah. I got pissed at the game."

"You ate all the pie?" Erik said, with far more intensity than was reasonable, in Charles' opinion. 

Raven gave Erik a very unimpressed look and then raised her eyebrows at Charles. Charles spread his arms helplessly. "There's more pie," Raven said, with the exaggerated inflection that only 12-year-olds are capable of. "Cook always makes two."

"She does? Great." Erik rubbed his hands together, more in determination that glee. He looked at Charles. "Okay. So here's the plan. We go by the kitchen, get the pie, get to my van and get the hell out of here."

Charles looked at Erik and wondered for a moment if Erik had a literal pumpkin pie fetish. He pictured Erik fucking a pie tin the way Jason Biggs had in American Pie and thought, _okay, that's a little weird, but he's still hot as hell. I guess I can live with that._

Raven just looked between Erik and Charles while she slowly picked up her nearby beverage, a tall glass with ice and amber liquid, and sucked on the straw. "You're leaving?" she said casually. 

"What's in your glass?" Erik asked suspiciously. 

She took a long slow sip through her straw, not breaking eye contact with him. "It's coke," she said finally, her voice dripping with attitude.

"Well, I _was_ going to offer to take you with us, but if there's more than coke in there I might reconsider," Erik said, crossing his arms. 

"I don't know if we can—wait, what do you mean 'more than coke in there'?" Charles turned to Erik with a frown. 

"I thought you were allowed," Erik sneered to Raven, and then said to Charles, "Your little sister drinks."

Charles' jaw dropped and he turned to Raven. "Raven! You're _twelve_!"

"Well, your boyfriend _doesn't_ drink!" Raven shouted suddenly, her lips trembling. "His flask just has water. He's a big fake!"

Erik glared at Raven but it was really hard to stay mad at a child when her eyes were welling up with tears. Even though he suspected it was a big act. Because—well, he was engaged in a big act himself. 

Charles looked back and forth between them for a moment, before scrubbing his hand down his face and laughing a little. "Since it's apparently confession time, he's not actually my boyfriend, Raven, but we can talk about that later if you do want to come with us."

"I don't know." She sniffled. Charles walked over and put his arm around her seated body. She looked up at Erik dolefully, but with a spark of steel behind her eyes that reminded Erik a little bit of himself. "Is Erik gonna be nice to me?"

Erik leaned down enough that his face was level with Raven's. "I will treat you like a princess as long as you get me some _fucking pumpkin pie_ before we leave."

"Erik! Language!" Charles said. 

But Erik just kept eye contact with Raven until her face hardened and she nodded, adorable and as serious as a mob boss. 

"Deal," she said, sticking out her hand. They shook hands solemnly. 

**

Fortunately, Raven didn't need to pack a bag, since she had not unpacked since arriving from her mother’s house earlier. Erik stuck his head out of Raven's room and looked both ways before beckoning Charles and Raven out of the room. 

"Why is he being so weird?" Raven asked Charles nonchalantly.

"We had a small, ah, altercation with Cain earlier and he said he was going to get his gun," Charles explained. 

Raven's body language changed instantly as she recognized the gravity of the situation. "Oh," she said softly. “I guess that explains your busted lip and his bloody shirt.”

 _More the former than the latter,_ Charles thought, but was distracted by realizing that Erik was leading them away from the kitchen. Then he thought - wait, why is Erik leading at all? He made it clear earlier that he was lost. He was about to say something to Erik when they all heard Cain shout and spied him far, far down the hall they were in. 

Fortunately, there was another hall crossing the main hall, so getting out of the line of fire was easy. Unfortunately, Erik dived one way while Charles and Raven went the other. 

They could hear pounding footsteps and Charles was afraid to poke his head out to see if Cain actually had a gun. He could see Erik looking at him, and it looked like Erik was seriously considering bolting to Charles' side. 

Charles took a deep breath and spoke quickly. "Erik, Raven and I will keep going towards the kitchen. We're closer and it's not safe for you to cross. I’ll try to draw Cain away from you, though. We'll meet you at your van."

"I don't know how to get outside," Erik said desperately. He could still hear Cain pounding down the hall, coming towards them, although it seemed his steps had slowed a bit. It was no surprise considering that Cain was clearly not a stellar example of men’s fitness.

"Take a left at the corridor behind you, then go down the second set of stairs, then turn right at the end of the stairs," Charles said intensely but not too loud. The last thing he needed was for Cain to overhear. 

"Got it," Erik said. He tore left down the corridor before he thought—what if Cain hurt Charles or Raven? The thought gave him pause and he was embarrassed that he had run off so quickly. In fact—he slowly stopped. Maybe Cain was bluffing? Erik hadn’t been sure that he’d been holding a gun in his one glimpse down the hallway. 

A gunshot rang through the house and Erik jumped and shrieked like a soprano. He turned around and tried to see if he could tell which direction the gunshot had come from. He desperately wanted to escape the madhouse, but he felt a stronger urge to make sure Charles and Raven were alright, so he ran back the way he had come. 

At least, he had thought it was the way he had come? Doubt about his directional sense began to fill Erik and after a few minutes he realized he was lost again. He stopped, breathing heavily, his hands on his hips. 

The door in front of him opened, and Erik jerked his head up and saw the last thing he was expecting to see: Sharon, in lace-trimmed leather lingerie, posing in the doorway. 

"Hiya, tiger," she purred. "I was wondering when you would find me."


	4. Hunted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY LOOK wonderful people made ART for this fic!!
> 
> [Check out the Cover Art created by avictoriangirl! ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4561059)
> 
> [Check out this picture of Erik drawn by actualmaxeisenhardt!](https://twitter.com/swagneto_ebooks/status/632047025425547264)
> 
> And of course, huge thanks to [ingrates](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ingrates/pseuds/ingrates) for betaing.
> 
> There is one more chapter after this which I will probably post tomorrow, and then it's done! Thanks for reading!
> 
> (Mild content warning for Sharon acting like a sexual predator)

Erik stood there looking at the woman with his jaw dropped for approximately four seconds, before he was spurred into action by the appearance of Cain rounding a corner down the hall. Cain roared when he saw Erik and started running towards him, holding a rifle in both hands. Erik leaped inside Sharon's room, prompting her to startle backwards. 

"Whoa there," she said with a small laugh as Erik slammed the door and locked it. He backed away from the door as he heard Cain's pounding footsteps get closer. 

His attention was focused on the door, with his back to Sharon, which is why he didn't jerk away in time when Sharon snapped a handcuff around his left wrist. As Erik turned to look at her in shock, she snapped the other cuff around a part of the nearby brass bed frame. She gave him a sultry and satisfied smile as she stood next to the bed looking at him.

There was a loud knock on the door. Sharon turned her head toward the door with a snarl on her face. "I'm busy," she snapped loudly. She turned her head back to look at Erik and the snarl was immediately replaced with the same sultry smile she had met him at the door with. The change was disconcertingly fast. 

There was a pause. "Have you seen Charles' boyfriend?" Cain said through the door, his voice clearly suspicious.

 _"No,"_ Sharon said in a loud and clearly annoyed voice, still looking at Erik and smiling. She took a step closer to Erik and spoke in a significantly softer and more seductive tone. “I’m so glad you came to see me. I was beginning to think you were just a cunttease.”

Erik swallowed. He was afraid to say anything, not just because he couldn’t really wrap his head around the whole situation, but also because he could still hear Cain’s labored breathing on the other side of the door and didn’t want to give away his presence. 

Sharon stepped closer to him and squeezed his left bicep appreciatively. “You don’t mind the cuffs, right? After all that talk about how the turkey was trussed up, I figured you were kinky.”

Erik leapt on the opening. “Actually, I _can’t_ do the cuffs,” he said in an intense whisper, his eyes darting between Sharon and the door. “And, I’m, uh, really flattered, but...uh...” He couldn’t figure out a way to finish the sentence without saying something that he was afraid would make his predicament worse.

Sharon crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “You know, you came on to _me_. Are you pussying out now? Because I could just let Cain have you.” She spoke at a normal volume.

“No! No, I want—um. But, I’m, uh.” Erik tried to think, shooting a nervous glance at the door. He could not have been less interested in doing anything sexual with Sharon, but Cain was currently the greater menace, and Sharon’s implication was clear. Maybe he could lead Sharon on for a bit, just until Cain got bored and went away? Still in a voice that was barely more than a whisper in volume, Erik swallowed and said, "I just meant—the cuffs...I can't—with metal. I'm allergic."

She gave him a skeptical look. "To _metal_?"

"To, ah, steel. I break out in hives. Ow!" Erik squirmed like he was in physical discomfort. It wasn't that big of a stretch. 

"Hives, huh?" Sharon looked skeptical. "Doesn't sound life-threatening."

"It can be," Erik said. "It can make my throat close up so I can’t breathe. I think—I feel it—" He put his free right hand to his throat and pretended that his throat was closing up and making his breathing more ragged. 

Sharon rolled her eyes but unlocked the handcuffs. "Okay, no cuffs. God, you’re vanilla, aren’t you? So boring. But I guess we can get right to the main event.” She unceremoniously pushed him down on the bed and climbed on top of him. 

The main event. _No. No no no no no no. Draw it out._ “Oh. Oh-oh-oh, I’m kinky,” he said with his most intense, Bill Hader-esque eyes. “Usually people can’t handle how kinky I am.”

“Mmm?” She was stroking her hand down his chest. “Try me.”

“I’m into, ah…” Erik racked his brain for something kinky enough to put her off and quickly dismissed the idea, as he had a terrifying certainty that nothing he said would put her off. But he definitely needed something that would leave him unrestrained. He thought about all the ads he saw on the side of the screen when he was looking at porn. What was disturbing, but ultimately harmless? What would buy him some time? What would get her off him?

“I’m a furry,” he said suddenly, but trepidatiously. 

Her hand stopped. “A furry? You like to wear—a big furry animal suit when you fuck?”

“Yes,” Erik said. He was committed now. He really wished he’d taken the improv classes he’d considered in college.

“Hmm.” Sharon smiled slowly. “So what animal are you? A tiger? A shark?”

Erik was listening hard, and was pretty sure he had heard Cain’s footsteps walking away. He definitely didn’t hear Cain breathing at the door anymore. If he could get Sharon off him, he could make a run for it.

“Um. I need...I need…” He cast his eyes desperately around the room for something that would get her off him. 

“Are you a bad doggie?” she whispered, bringing her whiskey breath closer to his face. “Should I put a collar on you?”

She couldn’t possibly have one within arms’ reach. “Woof,” Erik said, in the world’s most pathetic imitation of a dog’s bark, hating himself a little bit. He wished he was the kind of person that could just throw her across the room, but he couldn’t bring himself to risk hurting her—yet.

She laughed in delight at his answer. “I think I could find a rolled-up newspaper for you too,” she said with a smile that showed too many teeth. _Is this what people feel when I smile at them?_ Erik thought. 

She rolled off him and Erik didn’t waste a second before he jumped off the bed. Fortunately Sharon’s back was towards him as she tottered on 6-inch heels towards the closet, so she didn’t see Erik carefully open the door and peek into the hallway and confirm that Cain was not there. He slipped out the door just as she was turning back around.

Sharon shouted something after him but Erik was already running down the hall as fast as he could. He wasn’t sure if he was going the right way at all—the directions Charles had given him earlier had slipped out of his brain like he wished the image of Sharon smiling at him would. His heart was pounding with the need to _get out._

“I’ll jump out a window if I have to,” he gasped to himself. He saw a staircase going down ahead, and sprinted for it. At the landing on the staircase he smashed into a large, bulky person. 

“Well, someone’s in a hurry,” Kurt said. He was casually holding a rifle. 

Erik took a step back, his eyes wide and his heart in his throat. 

“Have you seen Cain? He said something about going hunting. I thought he’d want this.” 

“No,” Erik said, relief flooding through him as he realized that Kurt didn’t intend to shoot or threaten him. “I haven’t seen him.” _And I bet he wanted to hunt me,_ Erik thought. 

“Hmm. Well, I’ll have to figure out what to do with this, then. I have other plans, myself.”

“Okay,” Erik said, “I’ll just, um—”

“I was hoping to watch you fuck my wife.” Kurt gave Erik a toothy grin and licked his lips. 

Something snapped inside Erik. “AAAAAAA!” he yelled in Kurt’s face. At least he sounded more like a baritone than a soprano this time. He grabbed the rifle from Kurt’s surprise-slackened hands and continued sprinting down the stairs. 

He needed a door that led outside. Any door. He saw a few windows, but nothing that seemed to have easy access to the outdoors.

After running for what seemed like several more minutes (how big was this house, anyway?) Erik turned a corner and finally saw a door that led outside.

He opened the door and burst outside, taking great gulps of the chilly November early evening air in gratitude. He turned around a few times to get his bearings and realized he had exited a side door near the back of the mansion. When he looked towards the front of the house he could just see his van. 

He started striding towards it at a relatively fast pace, although he didn’t feel the need to run any longer. He realized he was still holding the rifle, and realized he had only taken it from Kurt in an instinctive act of self-preservation. He tossed it into the bushes that lined the side of the house. 

A moment later he wished he hadn’t done that, when he heard a shout and gunshot behind him. 

Erik sprinted for the van, his heart in his throat. The engine was running, thank God, and Raven and Charles were sitting in the front two seats, waving their hands at him, although something seemed backwards. The sliding side door was open and Erik had no hesitation in diving onto the bench seat in back. “Go, go, drive,” he gasped. He lay on his stomach, clutching the bench seat so he wouldn’t fly out the still-opened door as Raven slammed on the gas. The van lurched forward and to the left as she pulled around the giant X-shaped shrubbery that the driveway circled. 

The van kept going, blessedly moving quickly away from the Xavier mansion. It was a moment before Erik’s brain registered the anomaly. Raven. _Raven_ had slammed on the gas. The backward feeling of seeing them waving at him from his van less than a minute before finally solidified. Charles was in the passenger seat, with his body twisted around to face Erik. 

“Are you alright?” Charles asked. 

“I’m just...I’m just glad to be out of there,” Erik said honestly, looking between Charles and Raven. His chest felt chilled. “Raven’s—driving? I don’t—”

“Ah. Well. I’m used to, uh, driving standard transmission vehicles, and considering I had some wine with dinner...we thought it would be best if Raven drove.”

“Charles can’t drive a stick shift!” Raven cackled and shifted gears with a horrible grinding sound. “Whoops.”

“You—thought—” Erik put his head down and felt something squelch against his cheek. And something smelled very familiar too, not something he smelled everyday, but something he associated with warmth, and love, and family…

“I have some bad news for you,” Charles said hesitantly. Dread filled Erik and he realized what Charles was going to say because he had just realized the situation himself. “You landed on the pie.”

“I did what?” Erik asked reflexively, but his heart dropped as he sat up and found that the front of his shirt was covered with the burnt-sienna color of pumpkin pie. It was smeared all over the front of his shirt and up his neck to his face. The foil pie tin it had come in was smashed nearly completely flat. 

Erik whimpered and scooped two fingers through a glob of the gelatinous stuff on his chest and examined it. It was covered in lint and dog hair, which is what he got for letting Alex borrow his van to take his dogs to the park. “I just wanted pumpkin pie,” Erik said to his fingers. He felt like he might actually cry, but then anger spiked through him. 

“Stop the car,” he barked. 

He saw Raven and Charles exchange concerned looks, but Raven obligingly stepped on the brake and pulled the van to the side of the road. They were still pretty far from town, but probably not even a mile away from the Xavier estate. 

**

Erik climbed out the still-open side door as soon as Raven had stopped the van. He was muttering under his breath about crazy families and pre-teen delinquents and Charles felt that if someone could die from feeling guilty, it would be him.

“Get out of the van, Raven,” Erik called as he went around to open the back two doors of the van.

Charles got out too, and went around to the back of the van to talk with Erik. 

“Raven and I can walk back to the mansion from here, if you want,” Charles said quietly. He looked up at Erik only to see that he was shirtless and rummaging through a box. Charles’ breath caught in his throat because, well. Erik was slim but toned and his bare chest was thoroughly distracting.

Erik shook his head, not looking at Charles, intent on his task. “Don’t be ridiculous. That house—those people—what kind of person would I be if I sent you back there?” He was pulling clothing out of the box as he spoke to Charles. He picked up a red flannel shirt and sniffed it before shrugging and slipping his arms into it.

“Well, a felon, I suppose,” Charles said. He smiled a little as he said it, intending it as a joke, but when he saw the look on Erik’s face, his smile faded. 

“What do you think ‘felon’ means?” Erik asked, walking closer to Charles, still buttoning the flannel. His eyes were intensely boring into Charles’. “It describes someone who was convicted of an offense that is considered a felony under New York state law. That’s all.”

Charles’ eyes widened. “I know that!” he said, affronted. Erik huffed and turned to shut one of the van’s back doors. “But do you?” Charles continued, in a gentler tone.

Erik seemed to falter in his movements, facing away from Charles. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Charles imbued his voice with as much compassion as possible. “You wrote that ad. You were presenting yourself as an undesirable, someone who’s been to jail and who would horrify parents and start fights and hit on relatives. Why did you do that?”

Erik slammed the second door, not looking at Charles. “You wouldn’t understand. Now let’s go.” He walked around to the driver’s seat and climbed inside. 

Feeling confused and frustrated by Erik’s demeanor, Charles climbed back into the passenger seat. 

“Where are we going?” Raven asked blithely. She had buckled herself into the back seat, distastefully side-eying the pumpkin mess. 

Erik looked at Charles. “We haven’t discussed it,” he said to Raven while looking at Charles. “We could…” He paused. “We could all go to my place, unless you’re closer.”

“Your place?” Charles said in surprise. “I thought you—you don’t live in the van?”

Erik stared at Charles for a moment before he snorted in disgust, but a smile crept onto his mouth. “I have an apartment. It’s small, but it’s—did I ever say I lived in the van?”

Charles felt his cheeks burning. “I thought so? I don’t remember. I feel like an idiot.”

“I imagine it’s not as nice as your place, if you’d rather go there,” Erik said as he started the van and pulled onto the road. 

“Charles lives in London,” Raven said from the backseat. 

“First stop should be my rental car,” Charles said, glad that he remembered that. 

Erik nodded but didn’t say anything. They drove silently for about fifteen minutes.

“Cain’s gun only had blanks in it,” Charles said abruptly into the silence. He was feeling very uncomfortable with Erik’s taciturn mood and was wondering if perhaps he and Raven should just get a hotel room. Clearly Erik was upset about something, and Charles thought that perhaps knowing his life hadn’t actually been in that much danger might make Erik feel a little better. “Raven and I ran into him shortly after we split up and he fired one to show us. He thought it was funny.”

Erik’s lips tightened. “I suppose Sharon’s handcuffs weren’t real, either.” He was looking at the road.

“Sharon’s _what_?”

Erik frowned slightly and shot a glance at Charles. “Oh, I guess I didn’t tell you that. I kind of propositioned your mom and it, uh, backfired.”

Charles blinked and tried to get the very disturbing image that resulted from Erik’s words out of his head. Disgust was rising in him, along with some hurt and jealousy “You—what—I—my _mother_ , Erik? Was this before we made out or after?” 

“Aw, this is getting good!” Raven said from the backseat.

Erik looked at Charles and shook his head. He choked out what sounded like a laugh, and then started laughing even harder. Raven was giggling too. Erik forced himself to stop laughing so that he could keep driving. 

Charles felt anger rising in him and was going to address exactly what had happened between Erik and Sharon when Erik spoke. “It was _in the ad_ , Charles. I said I would hit on other dinner guests; you said it was all fine. So I did, right after you and Raven both left the table. Then I ended up running into her room after I heard the gunshot and…”

Erik trailed off. 

“And what?” Raven and Charles said at the same time. 

“And it took all my wits to get out of there without getting molested!” Erik snapped. “She’s a menace—a sexual predator!”

Charles and Raven looked at each other and burst into laughter. 

“It was actually pretty traumatizing,” Erik said pointedly, which only made Raven and Charles laugh harder. 

“Oh, you were laughing just a moment ago,” Charles chided him gently, wiping tears of hilarity from his eyes.

But Erik’s taciturn mood was back and solidly in place. “That was different.”

Erik was silent the rest of the drive. Charles kept looking at him, wanting desperately to draw him into conversation but feeling restrained by Raven’s presence. As they got closer to where Charles’ BMW was parked, Charles felt more and more upset by Erik’s attitude. 

Erik pulled the van up next to the car in the same spot he had parked earlier that day. It felt like a week ago. 

Charles handed Raven his keys. “Raven, could you please get into my car. I’d like to speak with Erik privately for a moment.”

“Can I drive?” she asked eagerly.

“No,” Erik and Charles said at the same time. Pouting theatrically, she got out of the van and slammed the sliding door behind her. 

“You’re upset,” Charles said. Erik looked at him with a distinctly blank expression. “Honestly though—you presented yourself in your ad as someone who could handle the fallout of being the black sheep at a family dinner.”

Erik’s eyebrows rose. “First of all, I _am_ handling it, considering your entire family is insane. And yes, I’m including your precocious sister and you, you—distractingly cute man with terrible judgement. And second, who are you to criticize how I’m _handling_ anything when _you_ didn’t follow through on _your_ end of the deal!”

Charles was a little stunned by being called ‘ridiculously cute’ and Erik’s last words were a little hard for him to parse. When the words “didn’t follow through” registered, Charles’ gasped, as he assumed Erik was referencing their truncated make-out session. 

_He’s mad because I didn’t put out?_ Charles thought incredulously. “Well if that’s how you feel, goodbye!” Charles angrily got out of the car and slammed the passenger door as hard as he could. 

He got into the driver’s seat of his car, breathing heavily. Erik was an asshole. Charles shouldn’t be surprised; that’s what he’d been expecting when he invited him to Thanksgiving dinner with his family. But it hurt, because he had thought for a moment there that Erik was more than that.

“What’s happening?” Raven asked anxiously, watching Charles. Her eyes darted to Erik’s van, which was idling next to them. 

“I don’t—” Charles swallowed. “Erik is an ass—” Charles tried to think about what he was feeling. Suddenly Charles felt more sad than angry. “I’m confused.”

“He’s mad because he didn’t get his pumpkin pie,” Raven said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. 

“Pumpkin...?” Charles frowned in the direction of the van, just as it started to pull away. _Of course _that_ was what Erik meant by his end of the deal._ Charles slapped himself on the forehead.

“Follow him!” Raven yelped. 

“What? I don’t think—” Charles found himself mechanically obeying his sister, even though he couldn’t really sort out why he should. “I’m not sure this is a good idea, Raven. I’m pretty sure he’d rather be far away from our entire family—including you and me.”

“Did you guys make-out earlier?” Raven asked. She asked it like it was a rhetorical question. 

“Yes,” Charles said. “But that was—” He hesitated. He was following the van automatically, probably far enough back that Erik wouldn’t know, but he would rather Erik knew he was being followed than risk Erik dropping out of his life completely. 

“Was there some reason you made out with him, other than because you like him? Did he pay you or something?”

“Raven!” Charles snapped, only to glance at her and see her grinning at him. “No! I mean, yes. I like him.”

“And he likes you, right?” Raven persisted. “He could have made us walk back when we stopped. But he didn’t.”

Charles bit his lip. “And he just called me ridiculously cute.” 

Raven leaned back in satisfaction. “Ok then. So. Why did you fight?”

“He was just being so—” Charles sighed. “Earlier he was different. When we were hiding from Cain. He was—sweet.”

“So you’re mad at him that Sharon traumatized him?” Raven asked. “Did you know that she and Kurt have this sick game where they cheat on each other and then pretend that they’re both into it and that nobody’s feelings are hurt, when actually, they are both hurt—it’s pretty twisted.”

They were stopped at a light, so Charles could give Raven a look full of all the shock and horror that her words put into him. “My god, that’s awful. How do you even know that?”

Raven shrugged and looked away. “Sharon blames me, and when she has enough to drink, she lets me know about it.”

“Jesus,” Charles whispered, staring at his stepsister. “I’m so sorry that you have deal with that, Raven.” He had to look back at the road since they were driving again. 

“Well, I spend most of my time at my mom’s, so it’s not like an everyday thing,” Raven said. “But sometimes mom has stuff come up and—well, not that I have nowhere else to go, but sometimes I don’t want to bother my friends by asking them. And I do have some cool stuff at the mansion.”

Charles remembered Raven’s room. “Yes, I guess you do.” 

“I like Erik,” Raven said. She abruptly grinned at Charles. “If I was older, I might give you a run for your money.”

“I hope you wouldn’t,” Charles said, shuddering at the very thought of Erik and Raven running away together. That surprisingly unpleasant train of thought was derailed when Charles saw Erik’s van pull into a parking space in front of a very unassuming apartment building. 

Charles pulled his car over and stopped a block away and watched Erik get out of the van. He wasn’t looking for them, so maybe he hadn’t been aware that he was followed. His posture seemed slightly slumped, but that could have been Charles’ imagination. 

“Aw, I wish we could get him some pumpkin pie,” Raven said, as they both watched Erik. 

“At this time of night, on Thanksgiving...store-bought is all we could manage. And he made it very clear that that won’t do.”

“Well, all we have to offer is you, then,” Raven said with a sigh. “I hope that’s enough.”


	5. Erik's

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter! Thank you all for the kudos and comments, and a huge thank you to ingrates for her awesome beta!

With Raven beside him, Charles nervously rang the doorbell of the apartment he’d seen Erik go into. She squeezed his hand reassuringly before dropping it just in time for the door to open. 

Erik didn't look surprised to see them, but he also didn't look overjoyed, Charles thought. He looked...pensive. “I thought I might have seen you following me,” he said. He opened the door wider. “Come in.”

Raven scampered inside immediately, but Charles hung back, searching Erik’s face. “I’m sorry,” he said. “about Cain, about Sharon...about how I acted. You really—I mean—pumpkin pie really means a lot to you, doesn’t it?”

Erik smiled, an expression that was both amused and sad, but mostly weary. “Yes and no. It’s complicated.” He gave Charles a tender look. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me too,” Charles said softly. Erik swept his arm and inclined his head slightly in invitation and Charles walked inside. He stood aside and let Erik pass, feeling somewhat self-conscious.

Erik’s apartment was small, but it was uncluttered and neat. A couch and television were the main features of the living room. Two tall bookshelves lined the walls, fully packed with books.  
There was a small balcony off the living room and a small kitchen around the corner. 

Raven was already bouncing on his couch. “You live by yourself? That’s really cool.”

“That means a lot, coming from someone with a one hundred inch television inside her bedroom,” Erik teased. Raven grinned at him. 

Erik took a deep breath and stood in front of the couch. “Charles, Raven.” Erik rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry if I was...unfriendly, in the car earlier. I found what I went through at your house to be—well, stressful. On days like this I sometimes wish I drank.”

“I drink,” Raven said. 

“No you don’t,” Charles and Erik said simultaneously, then smiled at each other. 

“Speaking of…” Erik gave Charles an inquiring glance. “Can I offer you something to drink, or eat? I don’t have any alcohol, but I have tea and coffee, if you’d like a warm drink.”

“Tea would be lovely,” Charles said, a little bemused by Erik’s...properness. 

He trailed Erik into the kitchen while Raven looked at every title on Erik’s bookshelves. “You must be hungry,” Erik said. “Neither you or Raven ate much at dinner—I didn’t either. I have burger makings; does that sound good?”

“Sure,” Charles said, unable to keep from smiling. Erik saw the expression on his face and smiled back, although his brow furrowed slightly. 

“You’re laughing at me,” Erik said in a low voice as he began to take food out of his refrigerator. 

“I just…” Charles trailed off and looked at Erik fondly. “You are not the person I thought you would be when I met you this afternoon.”

Erik seemed to get a little more color on his cheeks, not stopping in his food preparation tasks. “I told you I was a cook.”

“Yes, but...Erik the perfect host, Erik making me burgers in his own kitchen...this isn’t how I pictured you.”

Erik paused and looked at Charles. “Are you disappointed?”

“No! No. No, honestly...I’m not disappointed. I’m glad you don’t drink; I’m glad you have a home. I’m _really_ glad you didn’t sleep with my mother.” Charles studied Erik a moment. “You can tell me it’s none of my business, but I am curious...are you, in fact, a felon?”

“Ah,” Erik said with a smile. The kettle sounded and Erik started to prepare Charles’ cup of tea. “Yes, I am. I didn’t actually lie to you about anything.”

“Oh, I can think of a couple lies,” Charles said lightly, jumping up and sitting on the counter in a place where he wouldn’t be in Erik’s way, his legs dangling. “But I’m curious about this felony you committed.”

Erik stiffened a little and Charles realized that it was probably a pretty invasive question. “I mean, unless you don’t want to talk about it,” Charles added hastily. Something occurred to him. “It’s not related to your pie obsession, is it?”

“My what?” Erik said incredulously, with half a smile on his face. He picked up the teacup and brought it over to Charles, still smiling. “You think I’m obsessed with pie? Do you think I, what, fucked a pie in public or something?” 

That was in fact exactly what Charles had been thinking, and he thought it was probably written on his face. Erik set the tea down next to Charles on the counter and put one hand on each of Charles’ knees, still grinning. “My interest in pie is not sexual,” he said with half a laugh, before he stepped forward and pressed a sweet, chaste kiss to Charles’ mouth. 

“That’s much better than your other line,” Charles murmured when Erik pulled back out of the kiss. 

“My other line?” 

“Something about being bad to the bone,” Charles said, feeling amusement and affection for the man in front of him. “I’m pretty sure that was one of the lies, in fact.”

Erik chuckled lightly as he picked up Charles’ cup of tea and took a sip of it, swiping his tongue across his lips with deliberation afterwards. “Well, I’m no angel.” Erik put the tea down and smirked, then turned back to focus on the meal preparation. 

Charles watched him from behind as Erik kneaded the ground beef, because the view was almost as good as from his front. He was trying to think of something flirtatious to say when Erik started speaking quietly, still facing away from Charles as he worked at the other counter. 

"I usually spend Thanksgiving with my family. It's not much of a production—just my mother, father, sister and me—but she always makes fresh pumpkin pie." He paused to put a frying pan on the range. "They're all in Germany right now," Erik said, putting raw meat patties in the pan. He let them sizzle while he got produce out of the refrigerator. "My sister moved there last year when she met the man she's now engaged to, and my parents are there visiting her now." It was hard for him to keep the disappointment entirely out of his voice when he said, even more quietly, "I couldn't go because I'm on probation."

Charles hadn’t made any sound, so Erik turned to see if Charles was still following and found the other man raptly watching him. He kept eye contact with Charles for his next sentence. "And I'm on probation because...last year, I tried to get on a plane using a borrowed passport. I was trying to visit my sister in Germany." Erik couldn’t bear to see Charles’ reaction to that, so he quickly starting slicing the tomatoes.

“Go on,” Charles said softly. He wasn’t laughing at Erik, as Erik had expected.

"It was stupid," Erik said with a sigh. "Really stupid. I didn't want to miss her engagement party, and I had lost my ID, so I borrowed a friend's passport. Needless to say, I got caught."

"That can't be a felony," Charles said in disbelief.

"Well, it is,” Erik said. “Although I also did get a little angry with the TSA officer. I didn’t strike anyone, but I—may have said some things I shouldn’t have. Things that were interpreted as threats against the officer.” Erik heard his mother’s voice in his head. _Trying to be a tough guy._

"One weekend was the only time I actually served behind bars," Erik confessed as he flipped the burgers. “My parents could have made bail, but I refused to let them. Ultimately, I was sentenced to three months community service and one year probation."

“Nothing to do with pumpkin pie,” Charles said, a smile in his voice. 

Erik twisted around to smile back at him. “Well, not directly. It’s just that my mother’s pumpkin pie is my absolute favorite food—it’s what I look forward to about Thanksgiving every year. And since she only makes it with fresh pumpkin, she only makes it in the fall…” Erik sighed with longing. “It’s so good, Charles. She balances the spices perfectly—the crust is flaky and amazing…”

Charles couldn’t help laughing. “I have to confess, I’ve never been that big a fan of pumpkin pie, but the way you describe it does make it sound appealing.” 

Erik’s smile turned a little sad. He turned back to the counter next to the stove and started assembling the three burgers. “Well. One of the last things she said to me before she left was, ‘See what being a tough guy gets you? No pie!”’ Erik’s imitation of his mother had a slight German accent.

“Wait. Stop everything for a minute, mate.” Charles slid off the counter and approached Erik, smiling wide. “You posted an ad on Craigslist posing as a ‘tough guy’ so you could get pie? Just to prove your mother wrong?”

Erik turned to face Charles again and made a frustrated hand gesture, rolling his eyes. “Well, it was more like a joke. I thought it would be funny if I told her when she got back that being a tough guy _did_ get me pie.”

Charles moved closer so that he was standing in front of Erik, smiling so wide his face had to hurt. 

“So you’re not a tough guy?” Charles asked softly. 

“Well, I _am_ a felon,” Erik said softly, gazing into Charles’ eyes. “And I have a van and a leather jacket. And sometimes I get—moody.”

Charles moved closer, keeping eye contact with Erik. “What else?” he whispered. “A history of drinking problems, gambling debts?”

Erik sighed and looked at the floor for a moment. He was reluctant to admit it, but better now than later. “I don’t drink just because I don’t like the way it makes me feel, that’s all. My only debt is student loans...I have a degree in computer engineering. Actually, the fry cook thing is only part time because I’m also getting my master’s degree."

Erik had more to say, but Charles was pressed up against him. “Kiss me,” Charles pleaded, his eyes soft. Erik felt compelled to oblige. 

“I don’t actually smoke either,” he murmured when they pulled apart. 

Charles grinned at him. _“That’s_ the best news I’ve heard all day.”

Erik smiled back at the man in his arms. “So me being basically a boring, ordinary guy isn’t a turn-off for you?”

“Well,” Charles said, deliberately teasing, “There is the matter of the other lie.”

Erik’s face fell. “What other lie?”

“Your ad said the date would be strictly platonic.”

Erik studied Charles through half-lidded eyes. “You got me there...Sugarnipples. Hey. That reminds me...you know there was one more thing I promised to do in the ad.”

Charles meant to laugh but it came out as a loud snort. He clapped his hand over his mouth in mortification, but Erik just grinned at him. Charles tried to remember the Craigslist ad text as Erik grasped his hand and tugged him to the living room. 

Then Charles remembered, abruptly, the one thing the ad offered that Erik hadn’t done, and his heart started to pound. _Too soon!_

“Raven,” Erik said. Raven had fallen asleep on the sofa with a graphic novel open on her chest. Erik kicked the couch. _”Raven!”_

“What, what,” she mumbled, struggling to sit up and rubbing adorably at one eye. “I’m awake. What.”

“This I specifically promised to do in front of family,” Erik said, a wicked gleam in his eye. “Witness, child!”

“I’m witnessing,” she whined, slumping back. 

Charles’ and Raven’s eyes both grew wide as Erik slowly got down on one knee. Raven covered her mouth with one hand and started making a very high-pitched keening noise. “In my ad, I promised a proposal in front of your family,” Erik said seriously. “I don’t have a ring for the occasion, but—I’d like to propose, Charles, that you go on a date with me?”

"Oh my god," Charles shouted, a split second before Erik's words registered. His knees went weak with relief and he couldn't figure out if he wanted to laugh or cry. Erik grinned and laughed loudly at Charles' reaction. 

Raven threw a couch cushion at Erik. “You fucking nerd! You had me worried!”

Erik grinned even wider and stood up so Charles could kiss him thoroughly. They stood looking at each other and smiling like idiots for a moment, until Raven obnoxiously cleared her throat. “I smell food? Is there food?”

“Yes, sorry,” Erik said belatedly, dragging his eyes away from Charles. “I made burgers before I got distracted. They’re in the kitchen. Help yourself.”

“People make burgers at home?” Raven said in a vaguely wondrous voice as she wandered into the kitchen. 

The doorbell chimed. Erik glanced at his clock and saw that it was after 9pm. “We were probably making too much noise,” he said. “My neighbor’s an older lady, but she’s usually reasonable.”

Charles claimed one more quick kiss. “I’m going to the kitchen.”

Erik nodded and went to the front door. He wasn’t surprised to see white-haired Mrs. Munroe from next door,, although what she held in her arms made him feel almost light-headed.

“I’m so sorry I forgot this earlier,” she said. “I’ve just been so forgetful recently! Edie came by a couple of days ago when you weren’t here and said to give this to you on Thanksgiving. I think I just barely made it.” She chuckled at herself. 

Erik put a hand over his mouth and was mortified to feel tears in his eyes. “Is that—?”

“Her famous pumpkin pie,” Mrs. Munroe confirmed. “She said she couldn’t imagine how you’d get through Thanksgiving without it.”

Erik accepted the pie with trembling hands. “Thank you, Mrs. Munroe. This is...thank you so much. Would you like to come in? I’d be happy to give you a slice.”

“Oh, no, that’s sweet of you, but my doctor says I can’t,” she said cheerfully. “Happy Thanksgiving, Erik.”

“Happy Thanksgiving,” he echoed. He hoped she didn’t see the single tear that rolled down his face because he didn’t have a hand free to wipe it, as both were holding the pie. 

He shut the door with his foot and reverently brought the pie into the kitchen, blinking furiously to keep other tears away. 

Charles had been seated at Erik’s small kitchen table next to Raven, but he stood up as Erik entered the kitchen. “Erik, is that…?”

“My mother left it with the neighbor,” Erik said. He knew it was absolutely ridiculous, but he was actually trembling. “I can’t believe it.” 

“It’s a Thanksgiving miracle!” Raven yelled.

“I can’t wait to see you eat this pie,” Charles confessed. Erik carefully put the pie down on the counter and turned to Charles. Charles hugged him immediately. 

Erik clung to Charles tightly. “I promise I don’t have a pie fetish,” he whispered into Charles’ hair, and the words came out half laugh and half sob. 

Charles squeezed him tightly. “Honestly, I wouldn’t care if you did. I’m just happy you got what you wanted out of today.”

“I got more than I wanted,” Erik said, kissing Charles. He looked at the pie longingly. “I should really eat my burger first.”

“Oh, go on, Mr. Bad-to-the-bone,” Charles said, grinning. “Have a bite.”

Erik gave Charles a smoky look before he got a fork out of the drawer and took a bite of the pumpkin pie. His face melted into rapture. “Oh, god. That’s good. I might cry all over again.” He offered a bite to Charles but Charles put his hands up, shaking his head and laughing. 

“It can’t possibly be as good as watching you eat it,” he said. “So, you went through all that for nothing. Your pie was next door the whole time.”

Erik had already stuffed another bite of pumpkin pie in his mouth, but at Charles’ words he swallowed and set down the fork. 

“Not for nothing,” he insisted, and gave Charles a decidedly pumpkin-flavored kiss. 

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been really fun writing this and I hope you liked it! Sorry about the lack of smut, but I couldn't figure out a way to shoehorn it in. (that's what Erik said!) 
> 
> Also, for a very different (and screamingly funny) Cherik story based on the same Craigslist ad (!!!) (I wonder if the OP ever got a date??), check out [Yule Shoot Your Eye Out](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4575792/chapters/10421457) by sammykinz
> 
> EDIT: [telltail_heart](http://archiveofourown.org/users/telltail_heart/pseuds/candycandy)/candycherik made [this amazing, ahem, "alternative" interpretation gifset and drabble:](http://candycherik.tumblr.com/post/127133139421/this-is-what-i-think-of-when-i-see-think-of) Erik as an actual pisexual.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cover art for "For the Love of Pumpkin Pie"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4561059) by [avictoriangirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/avictoriangirl/pseuds/avictoriangirl)




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